Chapter 18:

 Tick Tick Tick

Once again Blaine found his clock mocking him. Its aggressive hands punching into Blaine's already pounding head as he lay stretched out on his sofa, arm thrown over his face. It glared up at him from the box marked simply ‘stuff' sat beside the coffee table; it was the only constant movement in the ocean of similar boxes strewn around the living room. Blaine sat up slowly and surveyed the pathetic remnants of his time in the apartment. 

 Kurt's apartment.

 They would be arriving later. All of them were helping to bring Kurt home so he could recover in his familiar surroundings. Be immersed in all his old memories and smells and senses in order to help him recover as quickly as possible. Familiar surroundings, familiar people.

 Except Blaine.

 Blaine rose, bone weary from the couch and moved listlessly towards the window, staring at the life unfolding below him. He closed his eyes to it all, blocked out the sounds and movement and brought himself back to the evening a week before; the one before that morning and the hospital and the Friday.

 "I feel like I've always known you. Does that sound strange?"

 Kurt looked at him, twisting his head sideways from its position in the crook of Blaine's neck, his lips brushing against the slightly salty, still sweaty skin. Blaine's hand continued to stoke circles into the soft, naked curve of Kurt's back, feeling it prickle with goosebumps beneath his touch, as he imperceptibly pulled the body closer into him.

 "No. It doesn't sound weird." He whispered quietly. "I think in all this..... that is probably the thing that seems the least weird. I don't believe.....I can't believe that this is all just entirely random. I don't think I'd ever have thought myself to say something like this. But......I think I was meant to find you Kurt"

 He felt the body shift a little below him and the slide of Kurt's thigh against his own as the other man manoeuvred himself on top of Blaine to look down intently into his face. He took him in hungrily, gulped in lungfuls of the beautiful, fragile face before him in an attempt to redraw every line and contour later. Blaine drew in a ragged breath through his softly parted lips and felt his eyes flutter closed against the scrutiny. He felt his already weary body, stir beneath him again as the other man pressed against his hips slightly, ducking his head to trace a thin line across his lips with his wet tongue.

 "When you sang to me.....b..before...." Blaine struggled to speak, his words dissipating on his lips as they mingled with broken gasps at Kurt's circling hips, grinding patterns against him more forcefully now. "Were...were you...ugh....it sounded like goodbye Kurt"

 The hips above him froze; the silky trail of the tongue against his neck paused on its journey and two ice pale eyes rose to look at Blaine searchingly. A small flash of fear flicked across the lidded grey eyes above him and Blaine wished he could take it back momentarily before realising he desperately wanted an answer to a question he'd not even fully posed. He maintained his gaze, warm and vulnerable to the response.

 The other man lowered his lips again and pressed them sweetly but forcefully against Blaine's, searching the inner heat of his mouth, passionate and desperate. Blaine whined in need when all too quickly the lips were withdrawn and he felt the cool air between them again. Kurt sighed and moved backwards slightly, shifting to the side of Blaine again and removing the pressure from their already hardening cocks. Blaine turned to look at him, face to face, and wrapped his arm around the now shivering back of the suddenly small looking man.

 "I don't know if it's goodbye." The voice that came out of Kurt was breathy and tiny. Blaine inched closer, closing the already whispery gap between them and kept his eyes trained on the other man's. "I feel.....I feel like something's changing. Today. I feel like things have changed. With us. Between us. I don't know...." He broke off searching for words that seemed to have evaded him. Blaine waited.

 "When I sang those words...I though....I think...they mean something to me. They always did, but now...I think I get it. I'm not glad to go as such, but I feel I would be ready to go now. If I had to. If this was it....I feel like you've changed me. Like you've changed all those previous meanings I attributed to that song and about wanting to go to actually, I don't know...being..maybe,  ready to go."

Words seemed lost now to Blaine and he did the only thing he knew how to. He leaned forward and pulled the other man against him fully, brushing his gentle lips across his forehead, his eyelids, whispering down his cheeks and over his jaw until they finally rested against his mouth. Their breaths mingled together again as he slipped past his teeth and their tongues slid against each other. Pulling back slightly, he pressed another gentle kiss to Kurt's lips before moving over him, cradling his head between his hands and resting his forearms on the sofa cushions that were strewn beneath them across the living room floor.

 "I'm not ready for you to go." He said low and gravely as he held him tight. "I'm not ready to let go of you. Even if you've given up; I won't"

 Their lips crashed together more aggressively this time and they pressed against each other hard, no attempt at gentleness as they clawed and grabbed at each others flesh. Kurt keened against Blaine's mouth as it journeyed across his chest, his tongue swirling around his nipple before tugging the sensitive bud between his teeth and biting sharply. The pain made Kurt writhe beneath him and he gasped out a strangled sob of pleasure at the sensation. Blaine felt his head being dragged back up to meet Kurt's searching lips and they ground against each other in desperate aching need.

 "I want you inside me." Kurt panted against his mouth, Blaine instantly moving to reach for the lube and condoms on the floor from earlier but pausing when he felt Kurt's hands grip his arms and hold him in place.

"No. I don't want you to use anything. I don't want lube or condoms. I want to feel you." He stuttered. Blaine froze, looking down at him in concern.

"It will hurt Kurt. I'm not going to hurt you."

"I want you to. It will only hurt at first and I want it to." Kurt looked pleadingly up into his face, his eyes wide with lust and broken desire. "I trust you Blaine. Please. I just...I need to remember you."     

Blaine wiped angrily at the tear that had smudged his cheek again as he turned away from the window and away from his memory. The packed boxes and carefully replaced couch cushions dragged him back harshly into reality and he felt his stomach spasm with the aching loss for Kurt.

He didn't know him; had no recollection of any of their time together and Blaine's already shattered heart couldn't look into that blank, grey, glassy stare any more without withering away to ash. It was done. Kurt was to return to the flat and Blaine needed to vacate. Quickly. Before Burt and Carol and the rest of the family he'd momentarily been tethered to, realised he had been lying to them all along.

 They didn't know who had been sub-letting the place; just that it was being vacated that morning in preparation for Kurt's return; the temporary tenant no longer required. Burt had casually informed him the previous morning, the last time Blaine had bothered to visit the hospital before realising finally that it was hopeless. Burt hadn't realised the apartment now contained fragments of that tenant's heart, scattered into every corner, and unable to ‘vacate' even if requested.

 I need to remember you

 Memories of their two bodies moving together as one, rocking to the rhythm of those words, stabbed against Blaine's chest again. The way Kurt had breathed them out through his lips, mouth flung open and eyes scrunched in pain and pleasure as he clung to Blaine's back, were scratched into his brain, unable to fade like the more physical red marks of Kurt's nails across his flesh. They'd been merged that night; had felt fully joined as Blaine lost himself into the tight, dark heat of Kurt and the other man had succumbed entirely to abandoned pleasure and pain.

 "Don't move...please"

 Kurt begged him not to withdraw, pressing his heels into the other man's waist where his legs were still wrapped tightly, forcing him to remain still. Blaine held on possessively to the quivering body, still shaking from the aftershocks of the orgasm that had ripped through him and the remnants of which was now sliding between their shuddering bodies. He looked down into the flushed face, noticing how even now it radiated a pale iridescence that belied the temperature in the room and their sweat soaked bodies. Kurt's eyes were still squeezed tightly closed and his breath was coming out in shallow stutters.

 "Stay inside me....please.....Just stay with me." He gasped through his dry lips, finally opening his eyes to connect with Blaine's own darkly dilated ones and pleading with him not to lose the feeling. Blaine stoked his hair back from his forehead, kissing a pattern of whispery lines across the damp skin as he held him tight; words spilled from his lips in tiny breaths, murmurs of never leaving him and always staying and various promises that he didn't know if he could keep but which tumbled uncontrollably from him as he felt himself involuntarily sliding out of the clenched heat of Kurt's body. The other man whimpered at the loss, the empty ache it induced in his very core, and a tear slid out of the corner of his eye, mingling with his already damp hair.  

Another loud tick invaded Blaine's conscious again and he shook himself, hunching down to pick up the remainder of the boxes and carry them down to the car. Eddie had managed to arrange for him to move straight into another apartment not far from Kurt's and he had to meet the over-eager realtor their in twenty minutes to pick up the keys and finalise his relocation. He'd been lucky he guessed. The new place was not a patch on Kurt's but the rent was affordable and it meant ‘minimum disruption to his routine' as Eddie had so unwittingly put it. Blaine sighed again and thought about the chasm that stood before him where routine should have been. With one final snide tick, the clock box in Blaine's hand was thrown unceremoniously onto the back seat of the car.

_____________________________________________________________________

"You got everything Kiddo?"

 Kurt's eyes roved around the room, taking in the familiar surroundings wearily. He was positioned on the sofa, blankets and extra pillows within easy reach, water, remote and an alarmingly large stack of reading material all standing by for ease of access. His head was throbbing from the over zealous administrations of his family as they buzzed around him, fussing over him to the point where he wanted to flick them away like flies. Sighing heavily he afforded his father a weak smile; he knew they meant well but it had been four days since he'd been awake and other than when he was sleeping, he had not had a single second of those days to himself.

 He needed time to think and try to digest all that had happened to him. While much of the accident itself was still a hazy blur, Kurt had begun to piece together fragments of the incident; the truck, the song on the radio, the garage. Everything was coming back to him in flashes and bright lights; it was confusing and disorientating and he was admittedly quite grateful for the sanctity of home and the feeling of the familiar cushions of his sofa beneath him. The room seemed stabilising somehow.

 "Dad! Stop fussing. I'll be fine. The hospital said I just need to rest." He sighed, trying to convey to his father that he really just needed to be left alone for a while. Burt stared down at his son, looking so small and fragile amongst the blankets and couch cushions.

 "I thought I'd lost you bud. You any idea what that's like? You died Kurt." Tears had formed in his father's eyes and he rubbed at his face, uncomfortable with the emotions that were overcoming him. Kurt reached for his hand and squeezed tightly.

 "I'm ok Dad. I'm still here. I'm not going anywhere."

 He held his gaze, steady and warm. Burt reached down and pulled him gruffly into a hug, trying to be delicate with his damaged son but wanting so much to cling to him, feel him breathing.

 "I'm your Dad Kurt. I'm supposed to protect you." He said into his ear, voice low and choked. "I can't do this without you bud. You and me against the world remember?"

 Kurt felt tears in his own eyes at the remembered childhood phrase between them, a more recent memory of it clouding his brain slightly as he tried to burrow through the foggy feeling of de ja vu.

 "You and me Dad." He reaffirmed quietly and squeezed him back, relaxing into the comfort of his father's embrace. Eventually Burt pulled away and rubbed awkwardly at his neck. He fiddled with his car keys slightly and looked to the clock.

 "How's the memory coming?" he asked tentatively.

 "It's weird. You know. I can remember everything else. I remember you guys. I've even started to remember the accident in little bits but....."

 "But not him." Burt finished quietly.  

 Kurt looked down at his hands folded in his lap; confusion blurring his brain again as he tried to recall anything of the beautiful man who'd swum into focus when he'd first opened his eyes, those hazel eyes that had stared at him with such intensity, such love.

 The stranger's eyes.

 "He stayed by your bedside for days Kurt. Didn't sleep. Didn't eat. Just held your hand....." He trailed off looking at the pained expression on his already pale son's face. "I'm sorry." He said gently. "I know this is hard for you."

 "I just don't know him Dad. I wish I could remember but there's just nothing. He's...I just don't.....I don't know him." He finished simply, hanging his head in obvious distress.

 "Hey, it's ok Kiddo. Take your time. Maybe he'll come back to you eventually." Burt patted his hand again and then reached for his jacket. "I'll call you later ok? You need anything, you call me. Anything....you got that?"  Kurt nodded quickly, trying not to wince at the aching pain it caused in his still muzzy head.

 "I'll be fine Dad." He reiterated firmly, moving to pick up one of the books on the coffee table and raising it slightly towards his father. "I've got everything I need right here." He said smiling over the top of the pages of Catcher in the Rye. His father nodded once more, the silent communication all that was needed between the pair of them and moved towards the door. With his hand on the door knob, he paused on the threshold, turning to look over his shoulder at Kurt again.

 "He's a good guy Kurt." He said simply, before closing the front door quietly behind him. 

 Kurt stared into the wood of the door after the image of his father had disappeared. Thoughts buzzed around his head in time to the gentle hum of the fan on the ceiling and the slight murmur of life outside the open window.

 Blaine

 He wished he could remember him, wanted so desperately to be able to clear his head of the chaos that was floating around it. It felt like they were all trying to give him pieces of a giant jigsaw that didn't actually connect together and it left him frustrated and cold. Sighing heavily, Kurt stretched his aching muscles and shifted himself down further into the couch. An image of himself sprawled out in the same position tickled his brain slightly; the feeling of soft curls stroking his neck and a deep burn inside inked across his memory, before he blinked it away. The Jigsaw pieces moved together but still didn't quite fit.  

Steam swirled around the bathroom as he pulled aside the curtain and stepped carefully out of the shower. He hummed gently under his breath before allowing the familiar notes of the song to play out in his head as he moved towards the final lyrics. Patting the towel across his dripping chest, he leant against the sink, pausing to glance up into the mirror above him. The glass was fogged with condensation but he couldn't discern any of his reflection staring back at him. Reaching up to swipe his palm across the glass, he allowed his voice to softly sound out the last line of the song.

 You were only waiting for this moment to arrive.

 Just as his fingers touched against the cold mirror, the door was flung open behind him and he twirled, startled on the spot. He was greeted by a pair of honeyed, dark eyes glaring back at him under a mass of unruly curls.

 Kurt's eyes flew open in the darkness and he sat up gasping suddenly. What the hell was that? Clutching the blanket against his chest, he stared wildly around the bedroom, not able to focus on anything other than the images of tanned skin and wild hair swimming before him. He reached for the bedside lamp, switching it on and immediately erasing the face floating in the half-light. Groaning and throwing an arm across his eyes, Kurt allowed himself to flop back against the pillows, trying to make sense of what he'd just...what? Dreamed? Remembered? It hadn't felt like a dream; dreams usually had a hazy quality to them, a blurring around the edge that hinted at an unreality. This had seemed so tangible. A vision, something pre-recorded and played back to him. He sighed and attempted to close his eyes again.

 The image seemed to be imprinted on his eyelids.

 Blaine

 The man his father had said had brought him back to this world. The man who had kept a bedside vigil for days and who'd cried and pleaded with Burt not to give up on him. The man who he was supposed to have dated. Shared himself with. Loved?

 Blaine.

 The name rolled around his mouth, unfamiliar and yet strangely comforting in its taste on his lips. He surprised himself when he heard the letters tumbling out of his mouth, sounding them into the silent room. A strange warmth wrapped around him at the whispered word and he had a flash of himself whimpering, gasping the same name as a weight pressed down over him. His head throbbed with the fogged images. He sighed again and rolled over to flick off the light once more.